1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to an assembly for feeding and milking animals and more particularly to such assemblies in which the animals are provided with a moveable feed platform. The invention further relates to such moveable feed platforms and also to methods of milking animals using such platforms.
2. Description of the Related Art
Assemblies for feeding and milking are known of the type provided with a feeding system comprising a movable feed platform having a number of feeding places and a drive unit for driving the feed platform. A milking system comprising a number of sets of teat cups may also be provided for milking e.g. automatically, animals on the feed platform.
An assembly is known from international patent application WO 02/19807 and the article “Rund und ohne Futtertisch”, DLZ Agrarmagazin, of March 2002, pages 120 and 121. Herein a standard feed platforms is described, provided with individual milking stalls, each milking stall comprising the associated teat cups and its own feed trough. The access to and the exit from the feed platform is controlled by means of a number of controlled gates. When the animals are to be milked, automatic driving devices are used to drive the cows towards the feed platform. During milking the rotational speed of the feed platform is adjusted in such a way that an animal will spend approximately 10 to 15 minutes on the feed platform (i.e. one rotation of the platform will take 10 to 15 minutes). When there is no need for milking, the assembly may be used as a feed platform. In this case the automatic driving devices are not used, but the controlled gates are. Moreover, the rotational speed of the platform is adjusted in such a way that one rotation will take approximately 30 minutes. Although such assemblies may be expected to provide an enhanced efficiency when milking large herds, these known assemblies have a number of drawbacks limiting their efficiency. It has been found that the use of automatic driving devices leads to unrest with some of the dairy animals, and these animals may then be inclined to consider the feed platform as unpleasant. This unrest will not only result in a reduced milk yield with some animals, but these animals will also be inclined not to go to the feed platform voluntarily. Consequently, when there is no need for milking, and the platform is used as a feed platform, these animals will walk more slowly to the platform or even block the gates. This may lead to further unrest and to insufficient feed consumption, which is undesirable, of course.
A further drawback of such known assemblies is that the dairy animals are not able to go voluntarily to the platform to be milked. It has been found with automatic milking robots that are freely accessible to dairy animals that a voluntary walk to the milking machine for being milked can improve the milk production and the animal health.
Other assemblies are known from US-A1-2002/0033138, U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,058, U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,912 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,358,000. These assemblies have been shown to exhibit various drawbacks. In particular, when boarding a movable feeding platform, one animal may board the platform more slowly than another animal, which may lead to delay. Furthermore, considerable problems arise when an animal refuses to board or to debark from a platform. A further disadvantage of earlier assemblies is that a dairy animal finds it unpleasant to be milked in a closed area, such as the stalls provided on the platform which limit the freedom of movement of a dairy animal to a high extent.
Another assembly is known from FR-A-2,649,858 which disposes sets of teat cups separately from the platform. The housing system as used in FR-A-2,649,858 is not explicitly described, but since the animals have to enter the circular platform from within the platform it is most likely that the animals have to be led from the outside of the platform towards the inside. In addition the assembly known from FR-A-2,649,858 also suffers from the disadvantage that a dairy animal is to be milked in a closed area, such as the stalls provided on the platform disclosed therein which limit the freedom of movement of a dairy animal to a high extent. Each stall is closed by two gates, so that this also restricts the free movement of animals since an animal has to board the platform at a specific position.
On the basis of the known feeding and milking devices, it has been found that dairy animals find it unpleasant to be milked in a closed area, in particular a closed area that limits the freedom of movement of the dairy animal to a high extent. Furthermore, dairy animals appear to experience walking to and boarding a platform as well as the mechanical way of milking as unpleasant, which may adversely affect the milk production and sometimes even the milk quality. In order to optimize the economical use of known feed platforms, the rotation of the feed platform was selected in such a way that the time a dairy animal spent on the platform during milking would amount to approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Therefore, in order to keep the rotational speed to some extent within the values admissible for dairy animals, the feed platform had to have a reduced size. In order to optimize the use of a feed platform, each milking stall was provided with the associated teat cups and further milking means. In the above-described known assemblies, the feed platform is always provided with separating elements forming a stall which can only be occupied by one animal. Such a stall was considered necessary, because it should be possible also to milk an animal in the stall. Confinement was in the past used to ensures that an animal would assume a reasonably defined position facilitating the connection of teat cups. An animal does not always experience such a confinement as pleasant, which may adversely affect the feed consumption and the milk yield. Moreover, such stalls hinder the animal boarding the platform from having the possibility of choosing only on the platform the feeding place where it wishes to eat. Free access of an animal to a feed trough on the feed platform is thus impeded.